Children of divorcees have shorter educations

Last year, the parents of 27,000 children aged 0-16 divorced in Denmark

July 1st, 2014 12:57 pm| by admin

New figures from the national stats bureau Danmarks Statistik show that children whose parents have split up are more likely to have short educations. The research followed over 50,000 children born in 1980.

Some 23 percent of the children whose parents divorced before they were 18 have regular school (grades 9 and 10 – ages 15-16) as their highest education level, while that figure drops to under 12 percent when the parents didn’t divorce.

“There is a clear connection between divorces and how children perform in school,” Jens Bonke, a lead researcher at Rockwool Fonden, told Jyllands-Posten newspaper. “We need to look into this more closely.”

Fewer resources Experts underlined that the figures reflect that divorced parents have less time to help their children with school work – something that Astrid Würtz Rasmussen, a lecturer from Aarhus University, agreed with.

“Divorce affects children negatively,” Rasmussen said. “There are fewer children of divorced parents who choose high school, and there is also a tendency for them to be hospitalised more often and to end up in crime.

Last year, the parents of 27,000 children aged 0-16 divorced in Denmark.